Just when you think you’ve reached the bottom of your to do list and your Son in Law arrives home announcing he’d like the house rendered. No problem we say, he runs a company specialising in rendering, so it shouldn’t be a drama. But then he tells us that the facias, soffits & porch, which incidentally has only just been repainted, need replacing before the render can go on! Oh and the steps to the front door and the flower bed in the front of the house that we’ve been considering filling in need completing beforehand too 🤪

After a week or so of scaffolders taking measurements of the house, the measuring and re designing of the porch and measurements for the facias and soffits, the house was a bit calmer as we waited for quotes.

Or so we thought. Having had our family holiday cancelled, our Daughter and Son in Law took the kids away, in the UK, for a few days and he booked the porch replacement to happen whilst they were away!  Then the night before he tells us “the fitter will be with you at 7.30 in the morning.“

So the alarm, that has only been set for holiday departures since taking retirement, is armed to wake you at 7 ……………….. and the fitter doesn’t show up till just after 8.😡 But once here, he and his mate, who turned up half an hour later, worked hard, dismantling the existing (recently painted) porch, built a stud wall, as I didn’t want floor to ceiling windows in the new one and erected the shiny new porch. We now have opening windows, which eliminates the smell of the two dozen cheesy shoes lined up around the walls and allows any flies, interested in said cheesy shoes, to escape.

 

So first job completed ✅ next stop scaffolding, which was due to be erected the following week. Oh and where was the Son in Law? Conveniently had to go to Wales for a few days to manage the start of a contract 🤔. There’s quite a lot of house, with three tall gables to reach, so it took four days for the lads to erect it to my hubby’s specifications. It also caused some interest amongst the neighbours, one of whom sent their cat around to investigate proceedings.

 

Second job completed ✅ and the hubby spent week three, tidying all the wires and removing the obsolete ones from the outside of the house. The greenhouse, attached to the side of the house, has been moved to a temporary home on the patio. The steps to the front door have been repaved and the flower bed concreted and is awaiting slabbing.

As we entered week four and the heatwave hit, the poor hubby has been up at the top of the scaffolding, crazy for a man who hates heights, fitting new facias and removing old pug from the tiles so he can fit a dry verge. I think he will have sweated away several pounds in weight by the end of it all. The Son in Law is looking to have one of his gangs start the rendering in a couple of weeks time. I hope he can be a little bit flexible, I don’t want the old man keeling over just yet!

It will have been six weeks or so of very hard work, but once everything has been replaced the exterior of the house will hopefully be maintenance free for a very long time and once rendered and the scaffolding removed it will look amazing.

We can never say that life in our house is boring and we often wonder “what’s next” on the Son in Laws agenda. Hopefully this will be it for a little while, so we can get our breath back, although he did drop into the conversation at dinner the other day that he’d like to build a cinema room/bar at the end of the garden 😳

We are keeping tight lipped at the moment, in the hope we can at least enjoy what’s left of the summer.